Southern Pines CDE is over

I think I can honestly say that the 8th Southern Pines CDE was a big success. Success at a CDE is measured first and foremost by a safe event. It is also measured by the weather – in this case it was about perfect. Happy competitors are another measure, and I think we measured up quite well in that department. Can’t say for sure 100%, but fairly high on the scale.

The last competitors left the Carolina Horse Park mid morning on Monday. I was able to say goodbye to Leslie Berndl and Scott Monroe as they checked their trailers one more time before the long road home to California. At least they can look back on the weekend with good memories.

Richard Pringle, Doug Spence, Kelly Valdes took down the course (another eventing competition is this weekend) and I cleaned out the office and dealt with the paperwork.

And then there are the reports for the ADS and the USEF. The ADS reports take about an hour. The same with the FEI report. Not too bad. The USEF report is another story, and many of you have heard me rant for years about it. This year Claire Reid volunteered to come over and read the names, numbers, breeds, ages of each horse and pony, names and addresses of all the drivers, owners, and trainers, and then all the individual scores from the judges in dressage, the penalties in each section of the marathon and the time and course penalties in cones, plus the placings in each division and the final placings. It took over 2 hours. WOW! And that is only because Claire was there to read every name and number without interruption. I was typing as fast as I could. It usually takes 6 or more hours of very tedious looking back and forth from the results to the computer. If I thought that anyone actually took the time to look at all this, it might be worth it. I doubt than any of the selectors look at it, and if they do, I wish they’d tell me.

The FEI report – even if we were not an FEI show, is meaningful because it actually asks which competitions each horse in a multiple competed in. It is simple, it doesn’t ask for useless information, and yet tells the interested parties what they need to know.

Looking forward to next year, we have some decisions to make: to apply for another National Championship, which officials to use. Bringing officials from Europe is getting to be prohibitively expensive. The benefits of being USEF vs just ADS recognized. Whether or not to allow “twice around” on the marathon for drivers, navigators or carriages.

But, it was a very good show, some people won, some lost, but hopefully all enjoyed a weekend at a lovely venue.

One response to “Southern Pines CDE is over”

I had a wonderful time even if I got eliminated. Thank you so much for allowing small ponies. The vets were very impressed by miss sassy and she had no problems doing the course. Very well organized and I look forward to next year. Thanks to all the volunteers.